Apparel Online Bangladesh Magazine February Issue 2019 | Page 48

TO ADVERTISE GOING TO A GOOD EVENT? Contact Rani Mahendru [phone] (512) [email protected] Send your industry gossip, photos and news to [email protected] SHIRT ‘EM UP! DECODING VARIOUS WAYS MEN’S SHIRTS ARE MADE! Probably known as one of the most unfashionable and unchanged products since the last century, men’s shirt remains one of the constant products of the apparel industry with approximately 18 components sewn together. That fixed two-piece collar, single patch pocket at left front, sleeve opening with cuff, double layer yoke, standard straight knife cutting for body parts and die-cutting or band knife cutting for cuff-collar, continuous bed fusing for collars and cuffs and sometimes front placket, everything in men’s shirt is set like a standard manufacturing process. But interestingly no two shirts’ sewing lines are similar! Operation breakdown of exactly the same shirt will be different in two different factories. While the product remains standard, why is the process so different? Dr. Prabir Jana, NIFT, Delhi explores… S ewing a men’s shirt can take anything from 20 minutes to 30 minutes. The time variation is due to process and technology variation. Although, there is reference of one 12-minute shirt by Kogos International Corporation, NY, I assume it was manufactured with overlocking armholes and side seams. Any overlock seam, although covering the raw edge, results in visibly protruding edge at the back side of the garment. The basic characteristic of a standard men’s shirt is that there should not be any visible protruding edge inside or outside of the garment; all seams should be flat as far as possible. A standard men’s shirt is assumed to have double piece yoke, armhole joined by flat & fell seam and two needle chainstitch sewing of lap seam (using feed of arm) at side and sleeve. Firstly, the overlock sewing process is approximately 20-25 per cent faster than lockstitch (301) or double chainstitch (401); secondly the overlock joining is always done by superimposed seam, resulting in easy handling of components during 48 Apparel Online Bangladesh | FEBRUARY 2019 | www.apparelresources.com sewing. Therefore, many mass-shirt brands resort to overlocking of armhole and side seam to increase the productivity. Most of the brands also use multi-needle double chainstitch (401) at front placket to increase productivity and reduce propensity towards seam pucker. Variation in garment construction A table of process variation of two operations will explain why any two shirt-making factories may not have the same operation breakdown. The sleeve placket making can have four different variations while the front placket making can have six different variations. It is important to note that all variations do not necessarily show up any major visible distinguished feature in the shirt’s appearance, and the process variation does not affect the performance of the garment. If we mix and match the sleeve placket and left front placket variations, we get 6x4=24 variations. If we combine right front placket which are mainly of two